IS SOCIALISM PRACTICAL?

by
Daniel DeLeon

The Daily People
Sept. 3, 1906

T he “practical” man sneers at socialism as
visionary, unattainable, and without any immediate social value.

Immersed in his own private affairs, and judging the world from the
limited horizon which they afford, he fails to perceive that socialism
is the only vital economic, political and moral force of modern
times.

For instance, the tendency of the age to interlock and internationalize
trust interests, is a practical prelude to socialism, to whose
developments the writings of socialists have contributed in no small
degree. These have exposed the wastes of competition, and pointed out
the inevitability of combination as a step in the evolution of society,
and, in so doing, have given a more conscious aim to capitalist
production, while preparing the way for the acceptance of concentration
as a preliminary to social production and ownership.

Politically, we know that socialism is a factor, not so much in what it
does itself, as in what it compels its opponents to do for and against
it.

What are the laws enacted in the interests of labor—however sporadic
and futile they may be—if not concessions of capitalism to the
growing power of socialism? And what apparition induces the plutocrats
of all countries to grant a measure of relief to their expropriated
victims, if not the apparition of socialism?

Would the czar have granted the Duma were socialism not present in
Russia today? What are “the public ownership of public utilities” and
New Zealand government enterprises, of which there is so much laudation
by middle-class economists and reactionists, but abortive attempts to
prevent the consummation of full-fledged classconscious socialism?
What was Mark Hanna’s aim—now carried out by his associates in the
Civic Federation, in “Americanizing” the trade unions, if not to
preserve the political and economic domination of his class from the
political and economic triumph of socialism, by way of classconscious
industrial unionism?

It can be said that, whatever good there is in the various social
panaceas—in “welfare work,” “social service,” municipal
beautification, tenement house and factory improvement—has been
achieved largely through the pressure brought to bear upon capitalism
by socialism. The necessity for quieting and suppressing
dissatisfaction favorable to socialist agitation is always present with
the capitalist class.

Morally, the practical effects of socialism are reflected in private
philanthropy, tainted money, and other discussions involving principle
and conduct; antimilitarism, packing house exposures, and a hundred and
one other manifestations in favor of greater honesty, decency and
peace. The millions that Carnegie and Rockefeller gave to education
and religion are the vain appeasers of a “social conscience” stirred
into active protest by socialist philosophy and morality. They are the
semirestitutions of stolen social wealth made under pressure of the new
outlooks on the new origin and functions of wealth that are primarily
due to the influence of socialism on modern thought. Read the tainted
money discussion, read the discussions on antimilitarism, on packing
house exposures, and note the influence of socialism on both sides of
those controversies, and be convinced that socialism is the greatest
moral force of the age, permeating and influencing the arguments and
actions of its opponents.

Just as the American nation was impossible as long as King George
ruled, so also is socialism impossible of complete demonstration as
long as capitalism holds sway. To have asked the exponents of American
independence to prove independence practical under King George would
have been unjust; yet, the opponents of socialism ask socialists to
prove socialism practical under capitalism.

Despite this handicap, however, such is the evolution of capitalism
under socialist influence, that the socialist can and does prove all
that the practical man demands of him. Socialism can and does meet all
the standards applied to it.

Socialism is practical, in the best sense of the term; a living, vital
force of inestimable value to society.